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The data in our 2010/11 Sustainability Report [PDF] and the accompanying online data file covers the financial year ended 31 March 2011. In our view, the boundary and scope of the report, together with our sustainability website, address the full range of material, economic, environmental and social impacts of the organisation.

Local markets
The data covers the following 19 markets in which Vodafone has a majority controlling stake: Albania, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the UK and South Africa (Vodacom). It also covers the Group’s joint venture in Italy (ownership of 76.9%) for which Vodafone is responsible for the day–to–day operations. Within the Sustainability Report and our sustainability website, we refer to our businesses in all these countries as ‘local markets’.

Our policy is to publicly report performance data from newly acquired businesses at the end of their first full year as a controlled subsidiary. During 2009/10, we increased our stake in Vodacom to a majority share of 65%, giving us operational control of the company which operates in South Africa with subsidiaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania. While Vodacom’s South African operations are included in the scope of our reporting in 2010/11, its subsidiaries are not because their sustainability data management systems are not yet sufficiently developed. We aim to include data from Vodacom’s subsidiaries in our reporting for 2011/12.

Joint ventures, associated undertakings, other investments and partner markets
Our reporting focuses on local markets where Vodafone has operational control (where we own more than half of the business).

The Group also has equity investment in joint ventures, associated undertakings and other investments in 10 countries (see Annual Report for a full list). These are excluded from our sustainability reporting boundary, as we do not have operational control. Our partner networks in over 40 countries also enable Vodafone to implement our global services in new territories, extend our brand reach into new markets and create additional revenue without the need for equity investment (see Annual Report for a full list). Vodafone does not have any equity stake in these businesses and so they are not included in our data.

However, we do work with our joint venture companies and associated undertakings on sustainability programmes: they are invited to participate in our global conferences and some case studies from these markets are included in this Report.

Outsourcing partners
Vodafone is increasingly outsourcing certain elements of our operations, in particular the deployment and management of our networks, which makes contractor management a significant challenge. Contractors are required to sign up to our Code of Ethical Purchasing, which sets out our sustainability requirements. We are also working with contractors to tackle key issues, including health and safety, and responsible network deployment. We already report data on contractor fatalities.

Other Vodafone entities including non-Vodafone branded companies

Landline and internet service provider (ISP) businesses
Data from Arcor, our landline business in Germany, has been included in our reporting since 2006/07. From 2008/09 our data has included our other internet businesses, including the former Tele2 in Spain, Tele2 in Italy, Perlico in Ireland and ihug in New Zealand.

Other non-Vodafone branded companies
In addition to the companies mentioned above, some of our local markets own smaller, non-Vodafone branded companies that provide services to their business. Data from these companies is excluded from the scope of our sustainability reporting except for the calculation of the lost-time incident rate. Data from non-Vodafone branded companies is considered less reliable.

Other Vodafone entities
Vodafone has various corporate entities and representative offices that are not material to our reporting (e.g. a small sales office), and so are not included within the scope of our sustainability reporting.

Retail operations and branded stores
The Group has approximately 2,100 owned retail operations and 7,600 Vodafone branded stores by way of franchise and exclusive dealer arrangements. Our sustainability data does not include the franchised retail operations or exclusive dealer arrangements.

Energy data and emissions reporting
We use an online data collection process to obtain our data, with all local markets reporting actual data where available. In the majority of our markets, energy usage data is based on invoices from our energy suppliers. In some markets, these bills are based on the supplier’s estimated readings. Where data does not match our reporting period exactly, we forecast this information. For sites where energy invoices are unavailable, we extrapolate this information based on typical site consumption.

These methods are used to calculate our total energy usage and emissions data. Additional boundary criteria apply to energy and CO₂ emissions data. CO₂ emissions are reported for network energy where the network operation is outsourced to contractors (as in Turkey and the Netherlands for example). We report 100% of the energy from shared base stations, where Vodafone is the named operator, but we do not include energy from shared base stations operated by third parties.

The sheer scale of our network operations in India means that the collection of reliable and complete energy data is particularly challenging. Considerable progress has been made this year in establishing better data collection systems, but further work is required before the data quality is the same standard as for the rest of the Group. Energy and CO₂ data for India covers all of our operations except for transport (fleet and business flights). For our joint venture, Indus Towers, we calculate our energy data based on our share of the usage of the base stations and report related CO₂ emissions as scope 3.